Washington Traffic

 

In case you haven’t realized, I really hate crowds.  We stayed north of Washington DC to see one of my brothers.  The hope was we’d miss most of the traffic by being outside DC, but that didn’t happen.  I guess I can only be in awe of my brother for surviving this.

Our first stop was the National Cryptologic Museum.  It’s right beside the NSA (National Security Agency).  The part I liked best was how it described history that we’ve recently visited but adding in the story of the codes that were involved.  For instance, signals were used at Gettysburg at Little Round Top and Benedict Arnold sent information to the British using code.  I also didn’t realize how old the science of cryptology was.  There was a book written in 1518 at the museum.  From historical examples to the current state of encryption, it was fascinating and a bit scary.

Sometimes I list stops that sound good on paper but are just disappointing. The church at a Franciscan monastery was nice enough but the garden had recreations of holy places from around the world.  Are fake holy places really holy?  This is a recreation of Lourdes.  Pretty, but why?

 

The Basilica National Shrine made me think of just one thing…holy sh..!  It’s big.  It’s the largest Roman Catholic church in the United States.

 

 

The Washington National Cathedral is a very large Episcopal church.  I loved the space window to commemorate Apollo 11.  A moon rock is included in the window.

Our next few days had to be cancelled.  We planned to visit two national park type stops that are now closed.  RV life means going with the flow.